A matched set of broken hips

I got the phone call at 4 AM, either late Friday night or early Saturday morning, depending on how you count time.

The BEST news a 4 AM phone call can deliver is a drunken wrong number. NO Candice is NOT here and (to my knowledge) she did NOT steal your man.

But this wasn't that.

This was the other thing. 

The "your mom fell and is in a world of pain so we've called an ambulance and are sending her to the ER" thing.

And so it goes... again.

I did not see my children on Saturday, leaving long before they were up for the day and retuning home long after they were asleep; Ethan in my own bed, missing me.

By the time I arrived at the ER my mother had been to x-ray and returned with the tech's unofficial "broken hip" reading, that soon became official. Her right side, this time. So now she has a matched pair.

There will be days ahead of back and forth on trains and in cars. There will be packed bags and sleepovers on Long Island friends' and relatives' sofas.

There may be an operation, or there may not.

This will be swift or long and drawn out.

There is no way my mother is getting away clean, without pain and suffering.

And that sound you hear?

Like crystal, cracked; musical and violent all at once?

It's the sound of my heart breaking.

Again.